Evolutionary dynamics of specialisation in herbivorous stick insects.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_100F392F8099
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Evolutionary dynamics of specialisation in herbivorous stick insects.
Journal
Ecology letters
Author(s)
Larose C., Rasmann S., Schwander T.
ISSN
1461-0248 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
1461-023X
Publication state
Published
Issued date
02/2019
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
22
Number
2
Pages
354-364
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Letter
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
Understanding the evolutionary dynamics underlying herbivorous insect mega-diversity requires investigating the ability of insects to shift and adapt to different host plants. Feeding experiments with nine related stick insect species revealed that insects retain the ability to use ancestral host plants after shifting to novel hosts, with host plant shifts generating fundamental feeding niche expansions. These expansions were, however, not accompanied by expansions of the realised feeding niches, as species on novel hosts are generally ecologically specialised. For shifts from angiosperm to chemically challenging conifer hosts, generalist fundamental feeding niches even evolved jointly with strong host plant specialisation, indicating that host plant specialisation is not driven by constraints imposed by plant chemistry. By coupling analyses of plant chemical compounds, fundamental and ecological feeding niches in multiple insect species, we provide novel insights into the evolutionary dynamics of host range expansion and contraction in herbivorous insects.
Keywords
Animals, Biological Evolution, Ecosystem, Herbivory, Insecta, Plants, Chaparral biome, Timema stick insect, host shift, plant secondary metabolites, plant-herbivore interaction, realised vs. fundamental niche, redwood
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
20/01/2019 16:35
Last modification date
20/08/2019 12:36
Usage data